(Im)politeness in McEwan’s Fiction: Literary Pragma-Stylistics

239 Pages·2023·3.564 MB·English

by  Urszula Kizelbach

(Im)politeness in
McEwan’s Fiction
Literary Pragma-Stylistics
Urszula Kizelbach
(Im)politeness in McEwan’s Fiction
Urszula Kizelbach
(Im)politeness
in McEwan’s Fiction
Literary Pragma-Stylistics
Urszula Kizelbach
Department of Studies in Culture
Adam Mickiewicz University
Poznan´, Poland
ISBN 978-3-031-18689-9 ISBN 978-3-031-18690-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18690-5
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Acknowledgements
I have always believed that scholarly books should be written for every-
body and not just for academics who specialise in a given field. Other-
wise, what is the meaning of science and humanities if only the privileged
few can understand them? I would like to address this book to various
types of audiences: pragmaticists, stylisticians and literary scholars, who
are all, to a different degree, interested in the analysis of literary text and
fiction in general. Many of my ideas for this book are the result of my
processing the conversations and suggestions kindly made to me by my
colleagues, who specialise in both literature and linguistics.
The most inspiring influence was from Professor Joanna Maciulewicz
(Adam Mickiewicz University), who devoted a lot of her time to our
discussions of Ian McEwan’s novels, Solar in particular. As an expert in
the eighteenth-century English novel herself, she is particularly sensitive
to the matters of narration and the communication between the narrator
and the reader in fiction. She has always shared her knowledge generously
with me, for which I am sincerely grateful.
The title for this book was inspired by Andreas H. Jucker, Professor of
English Linguistics at the University of Zurich, who jotted it down on
v
vi Acknowledgements
my book of abstracts over coffee at the ESSE conference in Brno in 2016.
We talked about the methodology of my book and how important it is
to include the recent developments in pragmatics (politeness) in literary
analysis. He is one of the most devoted and professional scholars I know,
and I learnt a lot from him. Thank you!
I would like to thank my colleague, Dr. Eric Rundquist (Pontif-
icia Universidad Católica de Chile), who was kind enough to read the
first draft of the second chapter (pragma-stylistics and narratology) and
provided me with useful references and made some critical remarks. We
regularly meet at the Poetics and Linguistics Association conferences
(PALA conferences), which give us a chance to talk about stylistics and
literature. I have never told him that but he is a very good specialist in
cognitive narratology and speech and thought presentation—he will find
out about it from my book.
The language of this publication was polished by my colleague Colin
Phillips (Adam Mickiewicz University), who is the most reliable and effi-
cient proofreader I know. Apart from myself, he is the other person who
knows every c hapter by heart. It is a true p leasure to work with him.
I extend my thanks to an informal writing group formed on Zoom
by my colleagues from the German academia, who invited me to their
“Wintry Writers’ Group” sessions, which have taken place for a year
now. We gather every day at 8 a.m. and get down to writing (arti-
cles, books, syllabi, etc.) for an hour. These sessions have motivated
me to become a better scholar and, most importantly, they have given
me extra strength to finish this book. I would like to thank the most
hard-working team: Prof. Dr. Uwe Küchler (University of Tübingen),
a specialist in English didactics and teaching who started this group;
Dr. Imke Lichterfeld (University of Bonn), who is a Shakespeare scholar
and who kindly invited me to this group; Gul¸sin Çiftçi, M.A. (Univer-
sity of Münster), who is a Ph.D. candidate specialising in American
poetry; Prof. Dr. Irina Dumitrescu (University of Bonn), who specialises
in Medieval English Literature and Sylee Gore, a poet and lecturer who
collaborates with the University of Oxford in issuing books for learning
English for professional purposes. Thank you and see you tomorrow!
My heartfelt thanks go to my publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, for
accepting my book proposal and giving me time to complete the
Acknowledgements vii
manuscript. I would especially like to thank Cathy Scott, Executive
Editor for Language and Linguistics, who was always available, answering
my questions, showing me a lot of kindness and patience and making
sure that I felt comfortable as an author. I also extend my thanks to
Abarna Antonyraj, Assistant to the Editor, for her hard work on the tech-
nical and legal aspects of the manuscript. Any authorial shortcomings are
my own responsibility. I would like to thank my anonymous reviewer
appointed by Palgrave, who helped me structure my thoughts, clarify
my definitions and who expertly pointed out what I did not see.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for their support
and for always believing in me. In particular, I would like to thank my
husband Michał, who was the first, very patient and benevolent reader
of my book.
Urszula Kizelbach
Contents
1 Why Ian McEwan and Literary Pragma-Stylistics? 1
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Approach and Methodology 2
1.3 Structure of the Book 6
1.4 Aims of the Book 9
References 10
2 Pragmatics and the Analysis of Fiction 13
2.1 Introduction 13
2.2 Politeness and Impoliteness: Key Concepts
and Theories 14
2.2.1 Linguistic Politeness 16
2.2.2 Linguistic Impoliteness 23
2.3 (Im)politeness in Literature: An Overview 31
2.3.1 (Im)politeness in Old English and Middle
English Literature 31
2.3.2 (Im)politeness in Renaissance Literature 33
2.3.3 (Im)politeness in the Eighteenth-Century
Novel and Drama 40
ix
x Contents
2.3.4 (Im)politeness in Contemporary Drama
and Fiction 43
2.4 Summary 45
References 50
3 Narrative Tradition in Fiction: A Pragma-Stylistic
Approach 57
3.1 Introduction 57
3.2 Implied Author, Implied Reader and the Question
of Intention 59
3.3 Stylistics and Fictional Analysis 68
3.3.1 From Russian Formalism to Stylistics,
Speech Acts and Implicature 71
3.3.2 Stylistics and Schema Theory 76
3.3.3 Stylistics, Point of View and Speech
and Thought Presentation 82
3.3.3.1 Linguistic Indicators of Viewpoint 84
3.3.3.2 Speech and Thought Presentation:
Free Indirect Speech (FIS)
and Free Indirect Thought (FIT) 85
3.4 Ian McEwan: The Stylistic Tradition in Fiction 89
3.5 Summary 99
References 103
4 Intradiegetic (Im)politeness or How the (Im)politeness
Theory Is Used for Internal Characterisation 109
4.1 Introduction 109
4.2 (Im)politeness, Science and Religion in Enduring
Love 111
4.3 Impoliteness and Immorality in Amsterdam 125
4.4 Atonement, (Im)politeness and Empathy 136
4.5 Summary 150
References 152
Contents xi
5 Extradiegetic (Im)politeness or How the Implied
Author Communicates with the Reader 157
5.1 Introduction 157
5.2 Saturday: Terrorism and (a Lack of) Imagination 159
5.3 Collapsible Viewpoints and Their Consequences
in Solar 171
5.4 Nutshell or Political Incorrectness in Utero 185
5.5 Summary 195
References 199
6 Conclusion 203
References 207
References 209
Index 227